The present invention relates to a system for guiding a missile in a direction of sight, comprising a source of emission producing a light beam of which the axis corresponds to the direction of sight, means for analyzing the field of observation, adapted to convert the beam emitted by the source into at least one flat, elongated pencil beam and to displace the pencil beam, and, on the missile, a detector and processing means for determining, from the output signal of the detector, at least one deviation coordinate of the missile with respect to the direction of sight, and to be able to control the rudders of the missile in order to control its path on the direction of sight.
French Pat. No. 2 164 180 discloses such a guiding system. With this known system, guiding is effected from a single light pencil beam, but the missile bears four ADM detectors disposed on a circumference of the missile, at an equal angular distance from one another. This system presents drawbacks. Firstly, the presence of these four detectors gives the solution offered by the system a certain character of heaviness which prevents it from being adapted to missiles of small dimensions. Furthermore, such a system is, by nature, sensitive to the rolling motion.
It is an object of the present invention to propose a new system which overcomes the drawbacks of the known system.